Willows, Jennifer - Lust for Life [The Moreland Brothers 2] (Siren Publishing Allure) (28 page)

“You mean Aunt Jen? Mak raves about her. She’s a psychotherapist right?”

“Yep. Jen isn’t really my aunt. She was a friend of my mother’s from their wild hippie days. Jen had problems with coke, and my mom got her clean. In those days there wasn’t a program like we have now. My mom held her captive in a cabin for three weeks. She used different drugs to keep her knocked out for the worst of it and wrestled her when those didn’t work. After it was over, Jen turned a new leaf and decided to help others who were in the same boat she was in. Jen is actually my godmother.”

“Oh. So how long is my mom going to be there?”

“They have her on a ninety-day program. I have her living in an apartment on the compound. When she finishes, I am going to have her stay in the condo I have downtown, and she will have thrice weekly sessions with Jen. She can take time to find something she loves to do and then get back into the real world.”

Charli was stunned. She couldn’t believe how much this man loved her. She knew those programs weren’t cheap. Not to mention he went into the mall and bought her something to wear. He could have pawned the duty off to someone else. Deven had plenty of money. But to physically do it? Charli’s eyes misted over, and she battled to keep the tears at bay.

“It’s okay to cry, pixie. My shoulders can take a few tears and not melt.” He smiled and tugged her over to him. Charli sobbed, tears she held back for years escaping. Deven held her, letting her cry until long moments later, the tears ended as quickly as they started. Her face and eyes had to be red, nose runny, but Deven still looked at her as if she had never been so beautiful. He took a napkin and dried her face, wiped beneath her nose before kissing it. Charli laughed. Here she was with her fiancé drying up her snot. He was definitely there for better or worse.

“You have three months, Charli.”

“For?” What in the ham sandwich was he talking about?

“For us to get married. I’ve been without you too long to wait more than that.”

Charli had no idea how this was going to work. Charyn and Mak had six months, and they worked day and night to make it happen.

“I don’t think it’s possible, Deven. We can’t get a decent location by then.”

“I don’t care where it takes place. Expect to make an honest man out of me.” Deven chuckled wickedly. “You will be my wife if we have to jump the broom in an alley. Consider yourself lucky I didn’t have to go with plan B.”

“P–plan B?” Damn, now he had her stuttering.

“Yeah. I was going to kidnap you and fly us to Lake Tahoe with a shotgun wedding at the end. If you get too skittish, I still might.”

“Deven, you are a damn fool.”

His eyes lit up. “Yeah, it’s great, isn’t it?” He was right. It was. “God knows, Charlene, I can’t wait to get you pregnant. Have us some pretty mixed babies.”

Charli laughed until she couldn’t breathe. But she could see their babies in her mind’s eye, mini-Deven’s and little versions of herself.

Epilogue:

Where Do We Go From Here

Charli spent the three months Deven allotted her in a haze, and time flew by. The restaurant, Cajun Chic, was open for business, and it was a raving success. Deven was her sous chef on the weekends and her pastry chef all week long. He baked the most amazing cakes and cookies for the patrons. In the mornings they would open-air shop for fresh food together. Then Deven would eat with her and walk to work. Her eatery was open for breakfast at six, brunch, and lunch, closing at two on weekdays. On the weekends she offered a truncated dinner hour, closing by six p.m.

All hands were on deck for the wedding, which was being held on a loaner yacht from the Moreland estate. The yacht would dock in at a local pier where the wedding was being held on board. After that point the yacht would head for a small island in the Caribbean, where Charli and Deven would stay for a month and fly back to the states. She decided to keep her share of the house, in lieu of selling and rented it to a young newlywed couple. The house had wonderful memories, and she couldn’t bear the idea of parting with it entirely.

 
Before the rental, the space was going to waste and unoccupied, as Deven refused to spend one night without her. When he left for a business trip, he wanted her there. If he was going, she was coming. They spent more time at his place anyway, and they decided to sell the small house in the subdevelopment. After they came back from the honeymoon, the new construction would be nearly ready for them to move in. It was in the perfect location, less than a mile from Mak and Charyn’s place in Ft. Fisher, and adjacent to the beach.

Deven had a new project in the works and was thinking of trying it on the new house. He was designing a series of lightning rods to march along the beach, they would be used to harness energy from storm activity and keep power in the house when there was no usable sunlight for the solar panels being installed. Charli decided the house would have a sod rooftop garden as well. It would serve well in the summer to draw heat from the house, and in winter the mass would make a great insulator to keep in heat.

Her mom left treatment one week before the wedding, and their first meeting was bittersweet. Her mom came to Cajun Chic at closing time and sat at a table waiting for the last to customer to leave. Although her mom looked wonderful, for Charli this was the going to be the first memories of her clean. She remembered the long hair her mother always had now shone with health and life, and the gray in front now colored with a bright red highlight. Her face was more youthful, fuller. She had gained some of the weight back but was still a bit too thin. But that was fixable. Charli was good for feeding people.

They talked and drank tea all afternoon, and Charli let her mom head to the condo several hours later. She even hugged her mom for the first time in twenty years. A few minutes later, Deven pulled up in a Range Rover, recently purchased in the hopes of squiring children. He was such a wonderful man and she may have never seen this moment if not for him. She locked the bistro door after setting the alarm and climbed in the passenger seat of the SUV. On her way home with her fiancé, Charli looked at her engagement ring and smiled. Life was perfect.

THE END

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